XM & Alarm Issue

[Peter Lynch]

I have an alarm setup to play an XM station. The issue is the alarm usually plays the Sonos Chime instead of the station. I can connect to the station manually through the controller without any problems. The station is available and active at the alarm time. The only thing I can think of is that it takes about 4 to 6 seconds to make the XM connection (as opposed to 1 to 2 seconds for a normal radio channel) and that the alarm "times out" and degrades to the chimes. Has anyone else experienced this with XM or any other alarmed station? If so, is there anything I can do about it? TIA!

[buzz]

Peter Lynch,

Are you using DSL?

Some DSL connections revoke your IP address if the connection has not been used for a while. After the timeout, the modem or router must sign-on again. This only takes a few seconds, but this delay plus the normal Internet radio delay will trip the SONOS timeout.

There are two work arounds.

Some modems and routers have a "keep alive" option that may keep your connection. My ISP seems to be smarter than my keep alive because my connection will time out anyway. (but it takes several hours)

Or, set a silent SONOS alarm one minute before the actual alarm. Make sure that the silent alarm accesses something on the Internet.

[Peter Lynch]

Originally Posted by buzz

Are you using DSL?

Buzz, thanks for the reply. No I am on a cable setup with a static IP for the router so DHCP release/renew is not an factor. The funny thing is the alarm with XM used to work pretty well...but then a month or 2 ago just started to "chime" out. I may give the silent alarm a shot to see if that helps. Thanks again!